Eigh­teen thou­sand lap­tops will be pro­cured for stu­dents en­ter­ing Form One when the new school term be­gins in Sep­tem­ber.

At the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath said the lap­tops will be pur­chased by the State en­ter­prise iGovTT.

Not­ing that this ini­tia­tive has been a pas­sion project of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Dowlath said, “These lap­tops will not be giv­en out emp­ty. They will be equipped with AI tu­tors, ed­u­ca­tion­al videos, and pro­grams that are age-ap­pro­pri­ate and will al­low our young peo­ple to live and learn in a dig­i­tal world.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said these AI fea­tures will help stu­dents and their fam­i­lies get im­por­tant ques­tions an­swered, such as “How can I get a birth cer­tifi­cate?” or “Where is the near­est hos­pi­tal?”

She promised that more AI pro­grams will be rolled out through the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence, led by Min­is­ter Do­minic Smith. The Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Ser­vices of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TSTT) is al­so ex­pect­ed to as­sist in the roll­out of the lap­tops.

The lap­top pro­gram was ini­tial­ly im­ple­ment­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ad­min­is­tra­tion in 2010. How­ev­er, when the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment took of­fice, a means test was in­tro­duced to en­sure that on­ly stu­dents who need­ed a lap­top re­ceived one.

Mean­while, a Cab­i­net note was al­so ap­proved for school re­pairs as part of the Va­ca­tion Re­pair Pro­gramme.

Min­is­ter Dowlath an­nounced, “In that note, 248 schools are list­ed. As we look at our 817 schools across Trinidad, we know that 329 are over 50 years old and there­fore re­quire con­tin­u­ous main­te­nance.”

He added that he was pleased to have met with Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath and the Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (MTS) re­gard­ing the school re­pairs.

Last Sep­tem­ber, then Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly stat­ed that al­most $2 bil­lion was need­ed to re­pair schools, as high­light­ed in a re­port sub­mit­ted by prin­ci­pals at that time. How­ev­er, she not­ed that her min­istry did not have the funds to com­mit to all re­pairs. Gads­by-Dol­ly had al­so said there are pri­ma­ry schools as old as 181 years, with 13 schools aged be­tween 121 and 130 years.